Farmers from across the country tour "house that cotton built"

They say it’s the "house that cotton built." It’s the high-tech headquarters of Cotton Incorporated in Cary, N.C., where research and developmentare conducted to keep cotton on consumers’ minds and bodies.

Annually, Cotton Incorporated lays out the red carpet and invites cotton producers from across the country to tour the facility, which was established, built with, and funded by check-off dollars assessed on each bale of cotton marketed in, or the equivalent imported into, the United States. The assessment is $1 plus .5 percent of a bale’s value.

This year’s multi-region producer tour was Feb. 16-18. More than 120 cotton producers and their spouses and guests from the Southeast, Mid-South, Southwest and Western U.S. cotton-producing regions traveled to take part in the tour. Here’s what they saw.